Using low-end blade system for hardware

[erdembey]

Hello,

I am intertested in virtualization technology for our servers and trying to figure out correct infrastructural design.

My intention is to reducre hardware costs and rely on storage with solid virtualization software, Vmware.

While searching for a low-cost server solution i found colo-machine blade system. http://www.colomachine.com/colomachinev3/Blade-System/CB1100/CB1100-Blade-System.htm

Is it possible to assume that this configuration can be managed by vmware efficiently ? My intention is to use the power of these blade system and it's server to power up several virtual servers.

With this way my virtual resources will be based on several low-end blade pc's. It will be easy to replace and low-cost technology.

Waiting for comments on this.

Thanks.

[Dave_Mishchenko]

Welcome to the VMware Communities forums. I've moved your post to the  Virtualization Technology & Industry forum - http://communities.vmware.com/community/vmtn/bestpractices/virtualization.

You would have some difficulties running VMware vSphere on these blades including the following issues:

- VMware doesn't provide a Realtek NIC driver

- each blade is limited to 4 GB of memory so you would be limited to running a few low memory VMs

- you would likely experience poor disk performance

Dave
VMware Communities User Moderator

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[erdembey]

Mr Dave,

Thank you for your detailed reply and warm welcome.

My main intention is to build virtualization (cloud, hosting, app services) with low-cost / midrange products ... Most preferably blade systems.

I want to have easly replaceable hardwares in my system. (Not for storage btw.)

I thought it would be possible to combine hardware power in VMs.

Can you recommend a possible hardware solution for my case ?

[Dave_Mishchenko]

What sort of VM load do you plan to run?   With a rack or tower server you can scale up memory and CPU thus going with fewer hosts or opt for blades which might mean more blades.   www.vmware.com/go/hcl will give you an idea of the systems supported if you have any prefences.  

[erdembey]

Thank you for your reply again.

My intention is to build scalable VM's according to customer needs.

Main purpose is going to be application hosting, mail hosting and several web applications.

If there is a special method for calculating VM load, i will use it but i assume the VM capacities will be based on their usecase scenerios.

I will be looking for alternative hardware solutions for my projects.

Thanks again.

[Dave_Mishchenko]

At the simplest level you'll want to calculate your CPU, memory and I/O needs.  It sounds like you're familiar with the apps you'll be hosting so if you can calculate your VM load then you can estimate the hardware you will need.